This is a story just leaking out, but it’s possible the hacking of the Hadley Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain might end up being the largest worldwide news event of the year.

If the preliminary indications of the take from this hack - which might actually be an inside job more akin to whistleblowing than a run-of-the-mill smash-and-grab - pan out into the real thing, we really ought to be looking at the end of the global warming movement. Because among the 160 megabytes of data (original raw file in zip format can be found here) blasted out over the internet are e-mails and files from some of the heaviest hitters in the global warming advocacy movement which expose the “science” behind man-made global warming as a complete fraud.

It’s the type of revelation that would appear to be too good to be true, but Hadley CRU head Phil Jones has confirmed that his outfit was indeed hacked and the data dump is real.

Some of the juicier elements coming out of this disclosure are e-mails between prominent scientists within the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) advocacy movement. They prove four patterns of behavior within the top ranks of that movement:

1. Rigging the scientific peer review process in favor of AGW advocacy;
2. Circumventing Freedom Of Information Act laws in Britain;
3. Fudging inconvenient data in an effort to support AGW as a viable theory; and
4. Engaging in efforts to mislead and intimidate scientific and environmental journalists.

Here’s a small sample of the take:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH [northern hemisphere] land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich

This first e-mail between Jones, Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes, Ray Bradley, Keith Briffa and Tim Osborn, all of whom have participated in generating the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports purporting to establish a factual basis for man-made global warming theory, contains a good bit of scientific gobbledygook. But two phrases stand out -”Mike’s nature trick” and “hide the decline.” Those refer to Mann, who was the originator of the infamous Hockey Stick Graph which Al Gore used in his propaganda film of a few years back, and indicate that Mann’s work is the product of lies and obfuscations. Damning stuff, indeed.

Another:

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
***

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.***

Kevin Trenberth is another IPCC researcher and in fact one of the most strident of the AGW advocates in fingering fossil fuels as a culprit in climate change. He also has blown the horn about hurricanes supposedly rising in severity and frequency as a result of global warning; that hasn’t occurred. And in this e-mail he basically throws in the towel and admits his and his cohorts’ computer models predicting warming are trash.

The recipients of the e-mail are an august bunch. Schneider, a former global-cooling prophet, was once quoted in Discover Magazine as saying:

“So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”

Allen is another IPCC contributor and AGW advocate, as is Stott. Santer was one of the original authors of the 1995 IPCC study “establishing” global warming as a phenomenon; he was accused of doctoring the final language in that study to delete statements in previous drafts so as to “deceive policy makers and the public into believing that the scientific evidence shows human activities are causing global warming.” He has since accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to study human effects on global warming. Wigley has been quoted as saying in touting AGW that “the human-induced changes that are expected over the next 100 years are much, much greater than any changes that societies experienced in the past.” Karl heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center and another AGW mouthpiece. Schmidt is a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies along with Hansen, who heads GISS - a controversy erupted surrounding Hansen, a confidant of Al Gore’s, when it was found that his outfit had falsified temperature data last October in an effort to show that the 10-year trend toward global cooling had reportedly ended. Oppenheimer is best known for his palling around with Leonardo DiCaprio and making propaganda TV programs on global warming with Tom Brokaw.

Want another e-mail? How about this one:

From: Tom Wigley
To: Phil Jones
Subject: LAND vs OCEAN
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:36:15 -0700

We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.

See attached note.

Comments?

Tom

In case you’re not familiar with the Urban Heat Island effect, it essentially describes the phenomenon that cities full of pavement, cars, industry and all other manners of modern convenience tend to be warmer than wilderness, and the more urbanized an area is the more likely that thermometers making temperature readings will show a warming trend over time. Wigley here is basically conceding the AGW position has major problems in this regard.

Another:

From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit

It might be mentioned that since the Hadley CRU is a government-funded institution, it is subject to the British Freedom Of Information Act and to destroy its documents and correspondence is a crime. “Keith” in this case is Keith Briffa, who with Jones works at Hadley.

More:

From: Tom Wigley [...]
To: Phil Jones [...]
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer [...]
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that theland also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean – but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips—higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH—just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note – from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not)—but not really enough.
So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
Tom.

Obviously there’s a good deal of jargon here, but it’s clear Wigley is talking about massaging his data to make a prettier picture.

There is a great deal more, and it’s all very damaging. The reaction has been strikingly similar to that of ACORN after James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles aired evidence of criminal conspiracies within its offices - castigate the whistle-blower. Mann pretty much channels Bertha Lewis:

“I’m not going to comment on the content of illegally obtained e-mails,” says Mann. “However, their theft constitutes serious criminal activity. I’m hoping that the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows.” Jones declined to comment on the matter.

With less than three weeks to go until the start of the United Nations’ climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Mann doubts that the timing of the attack is a coincidence. “The deniers will probably do anything they can to distract the public from the reality of the problem [of climate change], and the threat that it poses,” he says. “Cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes, stolen from private e-mails, is the best they’ve got.”

Meanwhile, Trenberth and Schmidt are quoted basically saying that while the material is genuine, the skeptics ain’t-got-nuttin-on-us. The global warming mouthpiece site RealClimate.org, to which several of these individuals are contributors, exults in the disclosure by declaiming:

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

One wonders whether the quote above represents a catalog of AGW skeptic criticisms per se, or if it really means what it says - it’s interesting that none of the above were broken open by this disclosure. If there is any indication of the latter and this thing plays out along the lines of the O’Keefe/Giles/ACORN exposes, the RealClimate gang might well regret that paragraph.

So - what’s the ultimate effect of all this? Well, if the credibility of the AGW advocates gets trashed to such an extent as a result of this that it affects public policy, it’s the end of the rationale for a whole host of awful initiatives and political positions which have been destructive to America’s economy. And if those were ever to melt away, this nation would then have the ability and motivation to use its staggering domestic energy reserves to create an economic groundswell which lifts us out of this recession and eliminates the vast majority of our trade deficit.

The chance alone that these disclosures might allow the scales to fall from the eyes of those people of good will who have been suckered by global warming propaganda and create a consensus in favor of rational, sensible economic and energy policies is one worth getting excited about. Particularly in this environment of non-stop bad news. If the global warming movement is to go the way of ACORN, it’s a victory over tyranny. And that’s worth celebrating this weekend.

Cross-posted at TheHayride.com

A couple of items stand out amongst a host of outrages today.

First, it appears that Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu has, as better than 75 percent of the public figured, begun to cave in and will apparently in two days vote for cloture on Harry Reid’s disastrous socialized medicine bill.

Landrieu not too long ago said “I’m not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be.” That didn’t last very long.

Over the last two weeks Mary has started changing her tune, and today ABC News says that she’s climbing aboard Reid’s garbage scow.

So, what is it that Landrieu is getting for compromising her “principles” this time?

$100 million.

The ABC News report says Reid is inserting language into the bill which would bankroll Louisiana’s Medicaid program by a few extra percentage points. It’s pork, it’s blatantly pork, and it’s small beer.

It might be impolite to call this what it is, but I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Winston Churchill. The story goes that Churchill asked a female dinner guest if she would consent to conjugal relations with him for a million pounds, to which he received a positive response. He then asked if twenty pounds would produce the same assent, to which the response was “Of course not. What do you think I am?”

Churchill is said to have responded, “Madam, we have already established what you are. Now we are just haggling over price.”

I don’t believe Churchill ever met Mary Landrieu, and that’s a shame. Undoubtedly he could have spouted forth an even more entertaining quip after seeing her trade her political virtue so cheaply.

Now, let’s not have too many illusions - Landrieu is hardly the “moderate” or “conservative” Democrat she would like for the people of Louisiana to see her as. There’s a reason noone believed her when she said she wouldn’t vote for a public option - when the party calls, Landrieu strips down and jumps into bed with the Democrat leadership with the speed and skill of a veteran. The next morning, naturally, she can be counted on to present herself as an upstanding member of the community and a reasonable, moderate, centrist voice.

Well, that fine, upstanding lady of the center is about to bring the country to the brink of Harry’s Hellish Healthcare Whorehouse. Reid is within a vote or two of getting cloture on a bill this weekend; if there is cloture on a bill, the Democrats will pass a federal seizure of the medical sector and destroy the finest system of health care on the face of the earth while bankrupting the government and killing the old and the sick in numbers currently unimaginable in this country. The American people look upon this program with overwhelming distaste and should it pass the retribution against Reid personally and his party as a whole will be unmistakable. But it’s clear they don’t care; this is not about helping Americans, it’s about raw political power and the creation of a dependent constituency which can be enslaved to the uses of the Democrat Party.

Landrieu, in that respect, is not a whore. She’s a soldier. Still, a paltry $100 million after all that preening about fiscal responsibility and her distaste for big government…it’s a tawdry show, indeed.

But while Landrieu might at least posture that her vote will help the American people by creating a new entitlement program, Baton Rouge mayor Kip Holden brings no such benificence to the table.

Holden surfaced Thursday after a devastating and well-deserved 65-35 clobbering of his $901 million bond issue proposal over the weekend, an electoral shellacking so pronounced that Newt Gingrich is writing columns about it as an example of how the Tea Party movement is rolling over big-government political hacks nationwide; local media were unable to find him for four days in the wake of the voters’ second rebuke of his centerpiece in as many years.

Supposedly Holden was in California for a technology conference. Whether that was true or not, he certainly wasn’t at a Dale Carnegie workshop or a public relations training session. Because upon resurfacing in town and making statements, he all but swore revenge on his constituents.

The mayor told the Baton Rouge Business Report that he has no plans to present the capital city with a reworked bond issue to meet the needs of the city’s infrastructure - after he’s been told he could get elements of his wish list through with ease if he would junk the Audubon Alive project and the other downtown monuments to himself people don’t want. Instead, he had this to say:

“I think sometimes you have to show the error of ways in order to move to the next step. You have to have tough love. And we have to understand that nothing is free.”

Holden also tried to compare the bond’s failure to a parent neglecting the needs of a child. “Think about if our parents had that attitude. We’d be paralyzed,” he said. “Paralysis is not Baton Rouge. Paralysis is when we choose not to see a vision that uplifts everybody in this great city and parish.”

Such incredibly stupid statements. It’s really breathtaking. Holden refuses to look at reallocating the city-parish budget so as to make room for some of the items on his wish list, even though he could fund a third of his program within the next three years just by rolling his budget back to Baton Rouge’s 2005 expenditure levels. And by making that choice, he is choosing the very paralysis he decries. And unsynchronized traffic lights and bad drainage which the city needs a fix for and could have if the mayor was willing to go through proper, honest channels to achieve consensus and get the job done, are our penance for not giving him the toys he wants.

As Charlie Buras at The Old River Road notes, “What kind of public servant wants to punish his constituents?” The answer might be found in the fact that the Holden family is all about punishment these days, particularly after today’s events in which the mayor’s sister was charged and is pleading guilty to a bribery beef. Evelyn Holden worked in the clerk of court’s office and used her position to shake down citizens with traffic and criminal charges at Baton Rouge City Court for a few extra coins; she found herself ensnared in a federal probe into such shenanigans.

The mayor made a statement on his sister’s guilty plea as well. “This is a very sad day for my sister and our family,” he said. “I am pleased that she made the decision to cooperate fully with authorities in their investigation. I hope everyone will find a way to keep our family in their prayers. Because this is a family matter, this is the only comment I will make on the subject.”

So in other words, Holden tells the people of Baton Rouge to pound sand on infrastructure because they wouldn’t give him all his toys - but hey, pray for his family after his sister is caught taking bribes to fix tickets.

It’s amazing stuff. And it points out just how bereft of intellectual talent and moral character the Louisiana Democrat Party actually is.

[Cross-posted at TheHayride.com...]

From our friends at RedState.com, and along the lines of last night’s post questioning whether the president is actually on the side of the American people, we present this:

Throughout the Bush years, the Left routinely became unhinged at the idea conservatives would question their patriotism, forcing Republican political candidates to contort themselves into pretzels by concocting a nuanced “I don’t question your patriotism; rather, I question your judgement” line to address the issue. But it was always patently obvious the Left was less patriotic than the American mainstream, and a respect for polite discourse if not outright political correctness kept the situation from being given a full airing.

Now, we see the Left’s prototype president in action. And whatever doubt there might be about his patriotism compared to American leaders in the past has to be melting away.

After all, Obama’s “low five” national anthem stance is nothing new. This happened back during the presidential campaign:

I’ll admit that our president’s intermittent failure to use commonly-accepted gestures to show respect for the flag doesn’t in and of itself prove anything; after all, the left-wing nutroots sites will regale you with pictures of the president with his hand over his heart to prove he’s capable of showing the proper respect - and then they’ll show you a picture of Obama’s predecessor during the national anthem with his hand holding his jacket closed rather than over his heart, all the while inveighing on how “stupid” the whole controversy might be.

The Left will also call you stupid when you point out this:

We’re told that despite what we can plainly see, Obama didn’t actually bow to the Saudi king, which no other American president has ever done. Nothing to see here, people, move on:

[sigh]

And his serial apologies for everything in America’s history prior to his presidency; well, that’s just good diplomacy, isn’t it? And his statement at the U.N. that “no country can or should dominate another country” amid a speech essentially bringing America down to the level of every other country in the world; well, obviously we’re getting it all wrong in thinking that implies a lack of patriotism. And then there was Obama’s statement on American exceptionalism during an April trip to Europe, whereby he was unable to say that this country had any moral superiority to any other; we’re exceptional because of a strong military and a rich economy.

Bear in mind that this is a man who sat in a pew every Sunday and listened to what can only be described as sedition out of the mouth of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (God Damn America, U.S. of KKKA, and so on) without any measure of protest, and in fact greeted the revelations of Wright’s speeches with the initial statement that he didn’t think anything Wright said was particularly controversial, much less totally wrong.

There are countless other examples I could provide which serve to prove that this man is less patriotic and holds this country in less regard than either mainstream America does or certainly than his predecessors did. And as he is the avatar for the American Left in a way equalled by no other modern political figure, perhaps it’s time to question more boldly whether the Left really does need to learn to love this country.

I’ll ask this question: what, exactly, does the Left love about America? They love the legal system; that much seems clear, since they’re in favor of litigating just about everything under the sun. But do they love Americans? Sure, America is a land, and it’s an idea, but at the end of the day what America really is is 300 million people who share that land and that idea. And the Left seems to spend its time hectoring and limiting those 300 million people, about what kind of car they should drive and what they should eat and how much carbon dioxide they put into the atmosphere and how they can use their land and what they can do with their money and so on. Is that love of country, or is it love of power?

I’ll submit that if patriotism implies love of country, the Left falls far short. They don’t love this country. What they love is what they think they could do with this country if someone gave them a chance. Conservatives and even moderates, I think, love this country as it is. And that’s something we should all keep in mind the next time we have a chance to choose our leaders.

Consider three events over the past few days:

On Monday, Barack Obama was quoted as saying the following:

Obama told Reuters in an interview that the United States had made more progress toward global nuclear non-proliferation in the last several months than in the past several years.

“But it is going to take time, and part of the challenge that we face is that neither North Korea nor Iran seem to be settled enough politically to make quick decisions on these issues,” he said at the White House.

This set Iran expert Michael Ledeen off to write a brilliant piece recognizing the deep and wide character of the budding Iranian revolution and the colossal opportunity it presents for changing the world - if only our president would take steps to encourage that revolution rather than coddle the regime representing the most acute threat to America’s interests on the planet.

Obama’s quote came just a day after Gen. George Casey had regaled the Sunday talk show circuit with sweet-sounding statements about the precious quality of multiculturalism in the military, the preservation of which is apparently more important than the actual lives of its members. “Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength,” he said, parroting the it’s-a-small-world-after-all bilge apparently required of all high officials in modern times. “And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

Casey’s comments set off a whirlwind of commentary, including a depressing and probably wrongheaded, but still thought-provoking piece by Michael Filozof at The American Thinker suggesting that if this is the level of commitment to winning the war against jihadist Islam the United States is currently enmeshed in, it’s time to surrender and withdraw to our own borders. Most would agree that Filozof’s prescription goes too far, but it’s difficult to argue with the conclusion that America is insufficiently engaged in the fight. Word yesterday that Obama has now decided to reject all current proposals on Afghanistan and start over, though he said today that a decision is coming soon, would seem to bolster Filozof’s point. After all, it has been over a year since Obama announced a need for a new approach in Afghanistan and more than six months since he appointed Gen. Stanley McChrystal to run the operation there. McChrystal has offered up his recommendations as to strategy in the theater over five months ago. And our president, who couldn’t allow the Apollo Alliance to write a bill to shovel $800 billion to left-wing advocacy groups fast enough upon his inauguration, needs more than a year to craft a policy on the most important issue facing the country.

And then today came the news that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and several other al-Qaeda monsters are now going to be brought to New York so they can have civilian trials complete with ACLU/Saudi-funded defense attorneys and a full discovery process to allow the enemy access to CIA sources and methods. This prompted National Review columnist Andy McCarthy to lament that the current governing class possesses a mentality even more detrimental to America’s security than what prevailed in the country on September 10, 2001.

The decision to bring the Guantanamo detainees, including Muhammad, to New York for a full-fledged civilian trial when he and several of his codefendants have already confessed guilt and requested they be executed defies any logic. You have to think the Constitution really is a suicide pact to think of the hardened, self-avowed al-Qaeda jihadists warehoused at Gitmo as civilian defendants. These people aren’t criminals. They’re enemies. They didn’t break American laws because they’re not Americans. To put them on trial for waging war as unlawful combatants against the United States is idiotic. Capture them, get what intelligence you can get out of them, then shoot them and bury them in shallow graves and be done with them.

It was bad enough that the Bush administration struggled through a seven-year morass in trying to craft a policy toward al-Qaeda and other jihadist prisoners which served American interests. Simply declaring them enemy prisoners of war, which the administration recognized was insufficent though perhaps the simplest approach, would have restricted their intelligence value and perverted the Geneva Convention to the disadvantage of civilized nations around the world. But Bush rejected the more traditional treatment of unlawful or irregular combatants - namely, that Geneva didn’t cover them and as such they were afforded no protections - and by doing so set the tone for these animals to become political footballs.

Or maybe political boomerangs. The crazy Left in America has made hay out of the supposed “torture” of poor Muslims for better than half a decade when most of the individuals in question deserved summary executions and no more thought at all; well, for a year they’ve managed to set the administration and the Speaker of the House against the CIA and the American people over whether the people tasked with the protection of the country from those who would slaughter us should be forced to defend themselves from its lawyers. And now those people have determined to set our defenders and in fact the country as a whole alongside the al-Qaeda animals in a circus political trial, with little to be gained and much to lose.

The knee-jerk reaction to these events would be to say that Obama, attorney general Eric Holder and their compatriots in these adventures are clowns and imbeciles. But they are no such things; you don’t rise to a level these people have without a plan and the ability to carry it out. The answer must come from elsewhere. And if they’re not doing these things out of incompetence or stupidity, why are they doing them?

After a week like this one, is it so loopy to question the commitment - or even affinity - Obama and his people have for America? Obama’s worldwide apology tour, his degradation of our alliances, his supplication to our enemies, his wholesale repudiation of past foreign policies and strategies and his increasing emphasis on suborning our sovereignty to international bodies would indicate an overall lack of commitment to America as an exceptional or even particularly worthy nation. With that as a backdrop, seeing the willful failure of his decision-making in Afghanistan, the refusal to address the issue of jihadist Islam as a threat within our military and society and now the return to the failed approach of treating a jihadist war against America as a series of crimes requiring full civilian trials for barbarians should make one wonder…

Are these people on our side at all?

It seems absurd that one could even ask such a question. But after a seemingly unbroken pattern of activities which can only be considered as unfavorable to our interests, the evidence does call that question into the realm of reasonability.

After all, if the Obama regime was in pursuit of America’s humiliation in geopolitical terms - would their policy approach be different than it currently is?

Cross-posted at TheHayride.com

Over at BigGovernment.com, there’s a seemingly innocuous piece about a subject that isn’t all that big a deal in the overall scheme of things - online poker, and the government’s policy toward the industry over the past several years.

The article’s author, Rich Muny, is a member of the board of directors of the Poker Players’ Alliance, an advocacy group for poker players boasting over one million members. As Muny writes, the PPA came into existence as a reaction to attempts by Republicans in Congress to put a stop to internet gambling. Specifically, the GOP was able to pass a ban on online gambling, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which became law as a rider to the SAFE Port Act. The UIGEA, a disgraceful piece of legislation, makes it illegal to transfer funds from American financial institutions to Internet gambling sites. But if those sites are for fantasy sports, horse racing or online lotteries, the UIGEA doesn’t apply.

The philosophical underpinnings of the UIGEA as it relates to conservatism are basically nil - this is an intrusive, nanny-state nightmare of a law if there ever was one. It adds a sizable burden on a stretched-thin law enforcement community and it makes outlaws out of hundreds of thousands of productive Americans - most of whom happen to be Republicans!

The UIGEA was bad politics, and it’s also bad policy. The hard-core online poker players will and have opened offshore bank accounts for use in playing money games, and by making online poker illegal the federal government has merely pushed jobs and capital offshore to places like Ireland, England and the Bahamas. So while this move might make it inconvenient for the casual online player, it does very little to attack the problem of the gambling addict that the government says it’s trying to protect from himself.

But this law also picks winners and losers in the gambling industry, which is the kind of abusive government interference in the marketplace that Republicans are supposed to abhor. If you make online gambling illegal, then you push gamblers into the ubiquitous casinos dotting every waterway and Indian reservation from Maine to San Diego, all of which are run by companies with deep pockets and great lobbyists. Or you push them to horse and dog tracks, where the lobbying connections are just as deep-seated and long in the tooth.

In other words, the online gambling sites didn’t buy off enough politicians to become viable. And the older, more established and not particularly wholesome operators in the gambling market, who already have their hooks into enough politicians to have expanded that market into all 50 states, get to leverage their connections into wiping out a competitor.

And so the guy who’d like to spend $20 playing poker for fun online at his house for a while is now going to go to a casino, where he’s going to spend $200. Fantastic call, there.

The effect? Out of necessity created by needless government action, there is now a new lobby group setting up shop in Washington with over a million members. And once that lobby group is able to force open the gates and make online poker legal again, they’ll be spending millions of dollars on lobbyists in an attempt to latch on to tax breaks, subsidies and - most of all - future attempts to ban competitors into the marketplace. Everyone whines about the effect of money in politics; well, you just created a new special interest group which will pump even more money into politics. Good job.

Of course, who benefits most of all from the presence of more lobbyists? Why, politicians of course - they’ve voted themselves the power to regulate or eliminate the livelihood and freedom of a new group of people, who will now supplicate themselves. And given that the world is no richer nor more virtuous now than it was in 2006, where is the proof that society is better off?

Admittedly, this is small potatoes. We’ve got far bigger issues to deal with in America than online poker. But a Republican Party which is apparently trying to recover its brand as the party of liberty and limited government is going to have a hard time convincing many of its newly-minted detractors just three years removed from wiping out a whole industry large enough to attract a million people into a new lobbying group.

This is an example of how the GOP needs to admit the sin, repudiate it and excoriate the other side for its failure to do so. And it needs to do it quickly; with the declining popularity of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress forcing the other side to cast about for new constituencies and political allies, it’s a matter of time before they seize the issue and turn the 20-million folks in America who are interested in poker into good Democrats. This has already started to happen. Robert Wexler, Barney Frank and Shelley Berkley have already authored bills which would weaken or remove UIGEA’s prohibitions against online poker; invariably something is going to pass.

And when it does, the party which has consistently demonstrated its disregard for individual freedom in America will be able to position itself as a liberator.

Is the above an argument in favor of gambling? No. And if social conservatives want to hold down the amount of gambling that goes on, I think they are not only within their rights to try to convince people not to gamble, they’re probably doing society a service by doing so. But just like those social conservatives rightly howl about the Obama administration’s having declared war on private charities with its nationalization/ACORNization of the volunteer market, the tendency of the big-government right to use the brute force of the state rather than the bully pulpit and the power of education and persuasion to effect social change - but for slightly different ends - is an abuse and a disgraceful hypocrisy for a party which casts itself in favor of limited government.

One day Republicans are going to figure out that the party’s job is to remove government from as many places in American life as possible; and to do so does NOT compromise its desire to encourage responsible and virtuous behavior. The latter has to be promoted on a VOLUNTARY basis through non-governmental and private organizations. Such an approach is consistent with the principles of liberty Americans like about the GOP - see Ronald Reagan’s iconic stature; Reagan was a big believer in leaving people alone - without exposing the party to accusations of bigotry and intolerance. It has the added benefit of allowing for people to opt out of whatever parts of the party’s social agenda they’re not interested in.

One day the GOP will figure this out. On that day, the party will find itself able to build the kind of governing coalition which can save this country.

Cross-posted at TheHayride.com

That’s what Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist terrorist who slaughtered 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas yesterday, screamed before opening fire on defenseless American soldiers in a medical processing facility.

“Allahu Akbar,” he said.

And yet Hasan, who received a poor fitness report from his time as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Military Hospital because he was apparently arguing the merits of Islamist terror with soldiers returning from Iraqi and Afghan battlefields on a regular basis, is not being described as a jihadist in the American media today. His actions are not being called a terrorist attack. Post-traumatic stress disorder - or maybe it’s pre-traumatic stress disorder, being as though Hasan has never been deployed but was about to be - and the fact that apparently he’d been subjected to impolite statements from fellow military personnel, are the commonly-discussed causes of his assault on some 40 American servicemen.

Among Hasan’s victims were, per the Wall Street Journal:

…at least one teenager, 19-year-old Aaron Nemelka, who joined the Army last year, out of high school. Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, was 22 and had just married. Francheska Velez, 21, was an oil-tank driver who had completed tours in Korea and Iraq. She was two months pregnant with her first child. Five Army reservists were also killed, including Michael Cahill, who was 62 and worked at the processing center as a physician’s assistant.

Hasan’s massacre represented the first time in American history that a commissioned officer in the U.S. military turned his weapons against fellow soldiers in a committed attack. After 230 years of something like this being basically unthinkable, one can’t help but get the feeling this represents a change in direction for our country.

This is one of the most ignominious and disgusting episodes in American history. It’s not a tragedy, though its effects are without question tragic. Rather, it’s a disgrace. And it proves that political correctness, multiculturalism and the victimization fetish within our culture aren’t just noxious; they’re deadly.

This man should never have been in our military. He should not have been at Ft. Hood. And he certainly shouldn’t have been on a George Washington University task force on homeland security.

Hasan was on the FBI’s watch list for posting statements on blogs advocating - or at least defending - suicide bombing. He shot his mouth off repeatedly about the righteousness of the Islamist cause against American troops; this wasn’t at the local Code Pink chapter meetings either, by the way, it was in front of fellow Army personnel. And he was going around Killeen, Texas in fundamentalist Muslim garb. Hasan was also giving away Korans and other belongings to people the day of his attack, and he scrawled out Islamic verses on his door before heading to the military processing center where he would massacre his fellow servicemen.

What is more, in 2001 Hasan was a regular at a Great Falls, Virginia mosque whose imam was a known jihadist currently banned in Britain for his support of terrorist organizations. As it happens, Hasan isn’t the only famous congregant at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque at the time. Do the names Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour ring a bell? Well, they were two of the four hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which they piloted into the Pentagon on September 11 of that year. Investigators are attempting to discern whether Hasan knew al-Hamzi and Hanjour.

In short, Hasan gave off warning signs left and right. He was on the radar. There have been scads of warnings that the next threat in what used to be called the War On Terror was going to be either individuals or small groups of Muslims acting on their own to use readily-available weapons to hit soft targets.

And yet no one stopped him.

It’s not like this stuff hasn’t happened repeatedly, ad nauseam, since the Islamist war against America began in earnest with the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. After 15 years of the military actively seeking to enlist Muslims into its ranks, we now have a long tradition of Islamist military personnel who have harvested infidels inside our armed services and out. Per Redstate.com:

The tip of the iceberg appeared in 1998 with the arrest of former Special Forces sergeant Ali Mohammed, a former major in the Egyptian army before immigrating to the United States and joining the US Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, NC.

In September 2004 SFC Abdullah Webster was sentenced to prison for refusing to deploy to Iraq. Testifying on behalf of Sergeant Webster was Air Force Chaplain (Captain) Hamza Al-Mubarak who claimed it was better for Webster to die than to fight fellow muslims.

In 2003 Army Chaplain (Captain) James Yee was arrested and charged with espionage and sedition based on his dealings with al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo. He avoided court martial because the government was concerned with classified information that might come out at trial. His assistant, Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, was convicted by a court martial. Civilian translator Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, also stationed at Guantanamo, was arrested and convicted at the same time.

In 2004 Army Specialist Amir Abdul Rashid was arrested, and eventually sentenced to life in prison, for providing sensitive information to al-Qaeda.

In 2008 Navy Signalman Hassan Abu Jihaad was sentenced to ten years for divulging classified information to al-Qaeda.

And no one can forget that on March 23, 2003, the eve of our invasion of Iraq, Army Sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar tossed a hand grenade into the command post of 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division killing two officers and wounding fourteen others including the brigade commander. He is now on death row at the US Disciplinary Barracks and presumably will soon have the services of his own private shrink.

We’ve also had a persistent problem with Muslim military chaplains who have turned out to be Wahhabi or otherwise jihadist in their religious orientation, with very delitirious effects. And the body count as a result of this is mounting.

Bear in mind that the Pentagon claims only 3,386 Muslims in the ranks, out of more than 1.4 million. And yet this episode is another in a consistent stream of fifth column activity through which that tiny community of Muslims is so prolific in causing havoc within the military.

How much longer are we going to continue burying our heads in the sand and pretending this is a “religion of peace” and that our fight is against terrorism and not jihadist Islam? How many more of our countrymen need to die before we define our enemy?

Naturally, the answer is “at least three more years,” because our current president is far more interested in prosecuting a war against the American private sector than he is in fighting our enemies - Islamic or not. Mind you, this is not a partisan attack on Barack Obama. His predecessor for whatever reason decided years ago to define the current fight as against a tactic rather than a tribe. And America’s refusal to recognize that we are in a societal conflict between Western civilization and Islamic barbarism - an epic war nearly 1400 years old at this point - goes back even beyond the ridiculous Carter administration and its fecklessness in dealing with Iranian provocations.

And this might be the most dangerous fact of all. America lacks leadership on an issue of grave importance now. Our enemies see this, and they WILL exploit it. What happens when average Americans, terrified by a real unemployment rate of more than 17 percent with no relief in sight, fearful of economic circumstances which augur national decline, distrustful of a political class which seems oblivious if not hostile toward their well-being and wary of what is all-but-inevitably going to be a skyrocketing crime rate, begin seeing Hasans not just once in a while but every other month or so? What will the answer be?

Civil unrest, that’s what. When a community gets terrorized repeatedly by jihadist Muslims in their midst who explode after ingesting rhetorical poison at the local mosque and then sees local and federal law enforcement pretend it’s crime and not warfare, the answer won’t be sensitivity training. It won’t be griping at the city hall meeting and it won’t be calling talk shows. What’s going to happen is pitchforks and torches, and sooner or later the violence is going to go the other way.

And when it does, the inevitable result will be injury to innocent Muslims who came to this country to escape the very intolerance, violence and barbarism men like Hasan practice throughout the Islamic world. It’s my belief that Islam is evil, but that doesn’t mean Muslims are inherently so. The vast majority of the Muslims in this country do not represent a threat to our society, but unfortunately a strict adherence to the Koran and the sharia law it demands is wholly incompatible with our way of life. And if our leaders and “intellectual elites” are unable to make the difficult and painful decisions necessary to insulate the public from the threat posed by Islamists - most of whom incidentally are no more secretive about their beliefs than Hasan was prior to his homicidal explosion - then nature will take its course and the law of the jungle will prevail here as it does in those base, uncivilized and hellish nations from which Muslims come.

UPDATE: Our Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano is in Abu Dhabi this weekend, and she’s taken a strong stance regarding the Hasan slayings.

Except it’s not quite the stance you think. Napolitano’s priority right now is to insure there is no “backlash” against Muslims in the wake of Hasan’s massacre.

Can anybody tell me what the death toll from previous “backlashes” against Islamist terror among our civilian population might be? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

This is precisely the kind of politically correct imbecility out of our government which will hasten a loss of control. When average Americans who see a pattern of terrorist activity from Muslims in our midst lose faith in this country’s leaders as protectors of law and order and community safety, they will take matters into their own hands. Of course, this plays right into Napolitano’s stance that the real danger to American security comes from “right-wing terrorists” and ex-military types - so perhaps it’s worth questioning whether we’re seeing an agenda being carried out.

Crossposted at TheHayride.com

Earlier tonight I was engaged in something of a debate on the subject of a putative matchup between Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meek in a general election for the U.S. Senate seat from Florida next year.

Meek, the likely Democrat nominee in the race, hails from Miami. His district is 55 percent black and 21 percent Hispanic, with 34 percent of its population being immigrants and 41 percent speaking English as a second language. Florida-17 went for Barack Obama over John McCain by an 87-13 margin last year (it went for Kerry by an 83-17 margin in 2004 and for Gore by an 84-15 margin in 2000), and Meek has NEVER HAD A REPUBLICAN OPPONENT. In fact, he’s had Saddam-like electoral margins since succeeding his mother as the House member from Florida-17; in 2002 he received 99.9 percent of the vote, in 2004 he got 99.6 percent and he hasn’t even had an opponent since.

Meek can be credibly described as an ACORN/SEIU stooge, as he’s received significant contributions from both throughout his career. It’s no surprise, then, that as a Congressman, Meek is one of the most far-left Democrats around. Here’s just a sampling…

If you can make it through all of this, what you’ll come up with is a typical Congressional Black Caucus member with no appeal to anyone in the center nor a history of even attempting to attract votes out of a safe black/hispanic/socialist congressional district. In a diverse and historically conservative state like Florida, he would have to be seen as a remarkably easy target.

On the other hand, we have the possibility for Marco Rubio - who is a former Florida Speaker of the House. Without delving into a litany of his accomplishments, let’s let him tell it.

Which one of these guys do you think is more likely to get elected to the Senate next year? And, perhaps a better question - does anybody really think conservatives have to compromise and nominate Charlie Crist for the Senate in order to beat Meek?

There is a certain degree of triumphalism out there surrounding last night’s Republican wins in the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races, and without question the media narrative coming out of Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell dislodging the Democrats from control in those two states is that Republicans are still capable of winning elections even in states Barack Obama carried in 2008.

Some of that good spirit is warranted. Some of it is not.

Christie’s win is the real prize for Republicans today. He comes off as a nice guy and a good public servant, and his message of lowering taxes, fighting corruption and doing something about New Jersey’s horrid business climate certainly fits that state’s condition. Christie’s campaign was panned by virtually all the experts as poorly-run and unimpressive, but at the end of the day he beat incumbent John Corzine by 100,000 votes despite the latter’s having spent $30 million - in a governor’s race! - trying to stay in office. Corzine and the New Jersey Democrat machine apparently went to impressive lengths even for Democrats in promoting election fraud through the use of the state’s new mail-in vote law; union and ACORN operatives went door-to-door in minority communities telling people there was a “new way to vote” and rounding up absentee ballots. That didn’t help; at the end of the day Corzine was so reviled by the voters that even in a state totally controlled by one of the most corrupt Democrat machines and shot through with class envy and economic illiteracy the former Goldman Sachs hotshot was turned out on his rear end.

That’s a big win for Republicans. Christie is a middling conservative and his appeal within the Republican Party is probably not going to be any greater than that of past GOP governors Tom Kean and Christie Todd Whitman. His position on Second Amendment issues is nothing short of atrocious. But in a state where Democrat governance has created refugees in the tens of thousands, he offers some hope that a Republican-led turnaround in the Garden State might rebalance the party’s fortunes in that part of the country.

The Obama lickspittles in the media are hustling to detach Christie’s win from any significance to his presidential approval, and it’s not especially noxious for them to do so; the New Jersey race was much more a rejection of Corzine than of Obama. Still, the president spent a good deal of time in New Jersey campaigning for Corzine. While his popularity in New Jersey is still above average, it’s clear he doesn’t have coattails in that state at this point. Obama won New Jersey by a vast 15-point margin last year; that the Democrat incumbent governor who outspent the Republican challenger 3-to-1 would lose by five points one year later is a rather stark fall-off. Dropping 20 points in your party’s fortunes in a year is unspinnably bad electoral performance.

The story in Virginia was even worse for Obama, though less of a shock given how things had been unfurling going into yesterday’s vote. McDonnell presented Virginia’s voters with an unmistakably conservative candidate; his social conservatism was crystal-clear and an avenue of attack for Democrat Creigh Deeds and his propagandist allies at the Washington Post, who prattled on ad nauseam about a college master’s thesis McDonnell wrote in defense of traditional gender roles. But McDonnell wore his conservatism extremely well. In the face of withering attacks from the Left he didn’t apologize or back down from his cultural beliefs, but at the same time he also refrained from anointing himself as all that was good and true. Instead, McDonnell ran a campaign about nuts-and-bolts government. He talked about taxes, he talked about private-sector jobs and he talked about roads and schools - things within a governor’s portfolio. It was a well-run campaign and it was devastatingly effective; McDonnell beat Deeds by 18 points, and the rout was so complete that the GOP candidates down the ballot cruised to easy victories in two other statewide races and picked up a half-dozen or so seats in the Virginia House of Delegates as well.

Obama won Virginia by six points last year, the first Democrat to win that state in a presidential election since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. McDonnell’s victory indicated a 24-point swing away from the president.

Obama’s people had all but taken over the Deeds campaign in the last month prior to yesterday’s election, and the results were disastrous. The president didn’t make the kind of personal investment in that race that he made in New Jersey, but the apparent lesson is that voters in a more conservative state like Virginia are a good bit more turned off by his governance than they were in more left-wing New Jersey. The tradition of Virginians voting against the party in the White House in their gubernatorial election also apparently played a part in the results; the president’s party has lost every gubernatorial race in Virginia since 1976.

So in the two most high-profile races decided yesterday, Republicans posted big wins and indicated giant swings away from Obama’s 2008 victory. That would augur well for the future of the party. Why qualify the success?

The fact is, there is a gigantic movement out there against big government and socialist nanny-state tyranny. The Tea Party phenomenon, the town hall outrage against Obama’s attempt to seize the health care sector, the continued and growing disgust at the president’s asinine economic policies and the growing feeling of malaise and decline at his weak leadership on foreign policy - all of these factors are contributing to a massive opportunity for a GOP resurgence.

But in the special Congressional election in New York’s 23rd district, the party showed itself unworthy as yet to take advantage of the current circumstances. Democrat Bill Owens was able to run away with a race that party had no business claiming, largely due to the breathtaking stupidity and incompetence of Republican leadership both locally and inside the Beltway. The race was mucked up so badly by the GOP that the Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava, who was considerably to the left of the Democrat, dropped out of the race and endorsed Owens over Conservative Party nominee and last-minute GOP endorsee Doug Hoffman. Scozzafava ended up getting a small vote total which would likely have made the difference in a Hoffman win.

It would be easy to dismiss NY-23 as just a crazy race which doesn’t mean anything. And the fact is Owens looks like he’ll be somewhat problematic for the Democrat leadership in the House; he campaigned as an opponent of the “public option” on health care, for example. If he’s rolled over by Nancy Pelosi and the other left-wing loons running the House Democrat apparatus and votes with Pelosi a la the majority of the faux-conservative “blue dog” Democrats he’s likely to be turned out next year.

But the fact is a party capable of making the kind of hash the GOP did with the Scozzafava nomination is capable of wasting the current national opportunity. The conservative side of the party did a very creditable job of jumping on Hoffman’s bandwagon and turning a third-party longshot candidacy into a real opportunity for victory; the Club For Growth injected a million dollars into the race on Hoffman’s behalf and conservative volunteers from all over the country descended on NY-23 to give him an organization he’d never otherwise have had. Hoffman comported himself reasonably well for a rookie candidate; he comes off as a little goofy and his speeches were a bit wooden but he’s otherwise likable and reasonable, and it’s conceivable that under better circumstances he would have won rather easily.

It’s the Republican establishment which is the problem. First, the idea that the GOP would pick Scozzafava as its nominee is an indication of staggering foolishness. Here was a candidate with zero charisma, whose record in the New York State Assembly (itself a terribly unpopular entity) was unimpressive in the extreme, whose credentials even as a moderate Republican were dubious given that she had voted to increase taxes almost 200 times, was a supporter of card-check legislation (her husband was an AFL-CIO representative), was socially far-left and had supported cap-and-trade and whose party loyalty had been in question even prior to her turning coat and endorsing Owens over the weekend. In short, Scozzafava is precisely the kind of Republican who should be immediately disqualified by the party’s bosses as a standard bearer - she certainly would have been turned out rudely in a primary had there been one. And yet 11 county chairmen in NY-23 agreed to run her for the U.S. Congress, with either acquiescence or even encouragement from Beltway suits at the RNC or National Republican Congressional Committee. The NRCC ended up wasting $900,000 of its donors’ money on Scozzafava in that race before she dropped out and endorsed the Democrat.

You’ll find other conservative commentators who will look at the fact that Scozzafava sunk like a stone in that race and had to drop out while Hoffman made an impressive showing as a third-party candidate and thus conclude the GOP has to run conservatives wherever possible if it wants to win races. While that sentiment is one I absolutely share, I have no confidence that message will get through to the Republican establishment. To the contrary, I fear that the country-club set still running the party will draw the opposite lesson. I’m worried they’ll say the Scozzafava-Hoffman debacle proves those crazy right-wingers will drag the party down and make it impossible to win elections, and this race proves it.

What’s more, the one thing NY-23 does prove is that a third-party option is no option for conservatives; Hoffman was able to get on the ballot in New York because a third party apparatus is already in place there, but that’s not available to conservatives elsewhere in the country. The Libertarian Party is thought of by most as a haven for hopheads wanting to make marijuana legal, which is an argument with some intellectual merit but a sure loser as an electoral stance, while the Constitution Party has no apparatus to successfully elect candidates. The Conservative line in New York does have the ability to occasionally produce a winner; that Hoffman wasn’t elected despite becoming a cause celebre and a romantic figure on the Right is a sure-fire indicator to the Tea party crowd that if they want to make a difference they’re stuck with the Republicans. And the country-club crowd in charge of the party is well aware of that fact.

Still, for all the refurbishment still necessary within the Republican ranks a 15-25 point swing in what was Obama territory in the space of a year represents major progress. Meaningful success in 2010 is indisputably possible now, and as a result there should be real implications with respect to policy. Last night’s results should go a long way toward letting steam out of cap-and-trade and socialized medicine; the latter apparently won’t be brought to a vote in the Senate until January at the earliest.

But this party has got to get its act together. Voter sentiment will attach to a McDonnell, but not a Scozzafava. If the Republicans don’t draw the right lessons from last night’s verdict, they’re going to squander the coming opportunity just like they squandered their congressional majority and the White House in 2006 and 2008.

Crossposted at The Hayride.

I myself think it’s beyond inevitable; it’s already done.

But even with that being the case I expect a McDonnell blowout in Virginia and a Hoffman win in NY-23, and New Jersey will be a close enough race that everybody is going to KNOW it was stolen. That’s a scenario all by itself which lays a big, fat shiner on the image of our president and his party, and if “Remember New Jersey” ends up a rallying cry for the GOP and the conservative movement it will be quite useful in its own right.

Naturally, this is a fairly cynical take and I feel dirty for espousing it - but if the people of New Jersey are willing to allow their state to be as far gone as it is they largely deserve what they get in allowing Corzine to steal that race. After all, anyone who saw that focus group on Hannity and got a whiff of the economic illiteracy and class warfare on display there will have a difficult time generating much sympathy for a state which could produce such numbskulls.

And while America certainly doesn’t need any more examples of the destruction left-wing governance produces, over the next 2-3 years a New Jersey where the governor’s race is obviously stolen and the “winner” presides over a further outmigration of people and capital amid rampant crime and corruption will serve as a crystalline case for conservatism.

It’s up to the people of that state. They have a clear choice; if they can’t come out for Christie in numbers sufficient to beat the Democrat sleaze factor, they deserve whatever they get.

This, in the interest of disclosure, from a resident of Louisiana - a state whose self-inflicted political wounds over the course of decades are just now finding salve in the best governing class of its sordid history (and even that isn’t really saying too much).

“It can’t happen here.”

That’s the first line of Jonah Goldberg’s chapter in Liberal Fascism devoted to what he says DID happen - a fascist dictatorship in America. Specifically, Goldberg makes the case that Woodrow Wilson was such a figure in American life during a presidency lasting from 1913-1920.

Obviously such an allegation is a juicy one, and when Goldberg’s book was published it was his treatment of Wilson which was one of the most controversial. This treatment is central to his thesis, as Wilson’s governance is the bridge between late 19th-century boutique leftism and post-Christian German philosophy percolating through America’s intellectual avant-garde and the advent of runaway federal government over the past 90 or so years in this country.

Goldberg does make a strong case that Wilson was fascist, at least by the definition he lays down in his first chapter - namely, that:

Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the “problem” and therefore defined as the enemy.

Given such a definition, the Wilson era in American political history probably was a fascist one. Wilson had been quite a prolific writer of political philosophy prior to his presidency, demonstrating an intense dislike for the concept of constitutional government and an even greater distaste for the American constitution in particular. As president his actions brought that philosophy into sharp relief - it should be remembered that Wilson was quoted as saying that as president he represented the right hand of God and those who opposed him were attempting to thwart His will. Thus at least in Wilson’s mind he represented the leader-as-demigod figure Goldberg’s fascism requires.

The destruction of the individual in favor of the needs of the collective, an essential element of fascism as Goldberg and nearly every other analyst defines it, certainly is present with Wilson’s administration. “No doubt,” said the former Princeton professor, “a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.” As president, Wilson used America’s entry into World War I, the avoidance of which he had used as a rationale to successfully seek reelection in 1916, to unleash what he called “War Socialism.” Central to this policy of creating a planned economy was the War Industries Board, a classic fascist operation which co-opted the country’s big businesses into doing the administration’s bidding with the carrot of protection from competition. Wilson’s administration also persecuted its critics and political enemies, passing a Espionage and Sedition Acts in 1917-18 and using the US Postal Service as a tool of media censorship while creating goon squads in the American Protective League and the American Legion to serve as street enforcers on behalf of the administration. There were some 175,000 Americans arrested for various public demonstrations of opposition to Wilson’s policies or even the failure to express sufficient support for them.

Goldberg goes at length to describe the parallels between Wilson’s administration and the Mussolini regime, which was fascist by name, in Italy at the time. He isn’t just manufacturing those similarities - they were much described by contemporaries, and in fact Mussolini himself was highly complimentary toward Wilson’s policies as president, and vice versa.

Is it a convincing case? Perhaps not completely, but that would depend on the acceptance of Goldberg’s definition of fascism - it’s clear he tailors his definition to include Wilson’s era, as is his prerogative. The typical narrative of Wilson’s presidency focuses less on his domestic actions and more on his thorough naivete and incompetence with respect to foreign policy. Wilson’s insistence that America was going to war with Germany in order to “make the world safe for democracy” and the subsequent disaster that was the Versailles Treaty at the end of that conflict are the factors by which most judge his presidency; with that emphasis it comes off as a bit strange that he would be considered fascist. But that’s an impression clouded by 75 years of progressive education and, perhaps more importantly, the intervening factor of World War II, which cast the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler in a totally different light than that contemporary to the Wilson Era.

Regardless, with Wilson America went from a country largely content to allow the world’s other great powers to cut their own throats to an internationalist do-gooder; from an individualist society to a more socialized economy; from a nation committed to freedom of speech to one rife with government propaganda and censorship. And in 1920, when the American people had an opportunity to render a verdict on eight years of his governance they turned out Wilson’s party in favor of Warren Harding, who promised a “return to normalcy.” And that fact, more than anything else, describes the judgement of the American people on what Goldberg calls fascism in this country.

In later chapters, however, Goldberg describes how the bad ideas presented by Wilson and the progressives continue to resurface again and again, repackaged as something new…

Bill Ayers has visited the White House twice since Obama was inaugurated -
he was there for 7 1/2 hours on Jan. 27, and for 11 hours on May 2.

Bill Ayers has spent 18 1/2 hours in the White House. Previous to the
current president’s election, one would assume that for such a statement to
be true it would have been a hostage situation.

Yeah, you read this correctly. Don’t believe me? GO LOOK FOR YOURSELF.

John Kerry is a liar and a tyrant, and Jim Inhofe does a nice job exposing him as such in this speech on the Senate floor debunking the global-warming hysteria Kerry backs in his nightmarish cap-and-trade bill now debuting in the Senate:

But that’s just a prologue to a discussion of the putrescence that is America’s 50-year self-immolation where it comes to energy.

I spent a day at the 2009 Energy Summit at LSU’s Center For Energy Studies today, and while it’s going to take a day or two for me to process all the information gleaned therein into a cogent analysis I could really put a stamp on, I can say that the gist of it basically amounts to the impression that if America had allowed her enemies to set our energy policy for the past 50 years we would have done little different and had no worse results.

Inhofe’s analysis in the speech above touches on much of the broader points of our policy failures and the risk we face from adapting this horrendous climate-change policy. But there is much more. The American people aren’t informed as to where our energy comes from - the fact is, 39 percent originates from crude oil, 23 percent from coal, 22 percent from natural gas, eight percent from nuclear energy and just seven percent from everywhere else. So there are four sources of energy which make a difference.

And what is our policy toward those four sources?

With respect to oil, our government has denied access to offshore production on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the eastern Gulf Of Mexico. We’re told the lie that there are no appreciable reserves in the Atlantic and Pacific, despite the fact that when the moratorium on drilling in those areas was put in place the estimated reserves there were seen as being around the same as in the Gulf. Estimated reserves as a result of testing and exploration in just the western half of the Gulf have increased exponentially, staggeringly. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Cubans uncovered as much as 20 billion barrels south of Key West, while the Brazilians have a find several times that size off their Atlantic coast. That as oil continues to seep into the Pacific off California naturally; there are an estimated 10 billion barrels within 50 miles of our west coast based on technology and exploration of 35 years ago.

That doesn’t even take into account the vast reserves in Alaska, whether from the new Chukchi Sea find, the Arctic plays coming to the forefront or the known reserves in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, opposition to which is as long-standing as it is insane.

It also doesn’t take into account the gigantic reserves tied up in shale in the Rockies which are a massive game-changer. We don’t currently possess the technology to efficiently convert that shale into a refinable product, but the main reason we don’t have it is that our government has blocked the development of the resource. There’s no point in researching and developing a process for conversion of that shale if they won’t let you touch it - just like you won’t get any seismic testing or exploration offshore in the Atlantic or Pacific if those areas are off-limits.

The result of this asinine policy is to turn the 20 percent share of our oil market which was imported during the 1970’s into a 70 percent share now. We transfer a half-trillion dollars per year to countries who in many cases mean us harm as a result - a sum which represents two-thirds of our trade deficit.

The question this raises is, cui bono? Who benefits? And who buys all these politicians in Washington who stand in the way of domestic oil production? I have no proof of causation, but it’s said all the time that Citgo (the American arm of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company) is a major player in Massachusetts politics and if you can find any Senator or Congressman on either side of the aisle who isn’t awash in Saudi bribes congratulations to you are in order.

Next, coal. Is coal an environmentally difficult energy source? Sure. But unlike the classic acid-rain scare stories told about coal power plants the current iteration puts out carbon dioxide and water vapor and pretty much nothing else as a by-product of its process. The Germans used coal to make diesel during World War II and powered their tanks and planes with it, while the South Africans run all their cars on gasoline made from coal today. It’s economical to do so at $55-57 per barrel, which is significantly lower than the $80 or so oil currently goes for.

Coal is also a cheap, reliable fuel for our power grid and has been so for 100 years. But without special-interest cutouts and payoffs included in the cap-and-trade disaster winding its way through the Senate the coal industry is going to die. Meanwhile, China builds two coal-fired power plants per week.

Under normal circumstances the recent Haynesville Shale and Marcellus plays would make American natural gas one of the boom industries in our economy. Both have the promise of bringing cheap gas to market and supplying a versatile, clean and inexpensive fuel into our mix in a volume which could help transform our economy. Natural gas makes a lot of sense as a transportation fuel, particularly where it comes to vehicles which go to a central fueling source like transit buses or school buses, or even 18-wheelers or taxis. Natural gas power plants also deserve a stronger look.

But nothing has been done to use natural gas for a larger share of our energy mix, and nothing in the current legislation promotes natural gas. Further, the issue of transmission of gas from the Marcellus play, which stretches from West Virginia to western Pennsylvania and southwestern New York, to the markets on the East Coast is almost an impossibility. Current gas pipelines going into those markets are at near capacity and it would almost make economic and logistical sense based on the regulatory nightmare of trying to build pipelines through Pennsylvania and New York to pipe Marcellus gas down to a Louisiana LNG terminal and put it on ships to the East Coast. That’s just how idiotic the attitudes are toward our energy infrastructure. And without the infrastructure in place to make full use of our natural gas resources, there is a consequent downward pressure on price making natural gas production uneconomical in many of the older fields.

Finally, nuclear energy. France powers 80 percent of its grid on nuclear energy, reprocesses its spent fuel, has achieved 95 percent efficiency therein and fits all the nuclear waste from 40 years of power production in one room at Le Havre. China has 50 nuclear power plants in their pipeline. And America, who invented nuclear power technology and has run its aircraft carriers and submarines on nuclear power since the 1960’s, hasn’t built a nuclear power plant in 30 years.

Our policy toward nuclear energy is beyond stupid; it’s criminal. Nuclear energy has been incredibly reliable, safe, clean and cheap from the get-go with one minor exception at Three Mile Island which was occasioned by human error. The regulatory issues are so horrendous with nuclear energy and the policy about reprocessing fuel so counterproductive that we have all but killed the industry. Meanwhile the French and Japanese have taken the leadership in nuclear science and technology away from America and we are all but dependent on foreign know-how and investment were we ever to reinvest in a proven, effective technology we invented in the first place. When we get knocked off in Olympic basketball it’s a national tragedy and we want heads to roll; shouldn’t this be seen as a little more important to our national pride?

Our current administration seems happy to disregard the four pillars of our energy production in favor of wind and solar energy which COMBINED produce less than one half of one percent of our current needs. Understand this - wind and solar power will NEVER supply a significant proportion of our energy mix. NEVER. They are simply not economical, they’re not reliable, they’re not abundant and the places where wind and solar energy can be had in significant amounts are in most cases hundreds of miles away from energy markets. And unlike coal or oil, which can be transported by trucks or rail, or natural gas or oil which can go to market via an underground pipeline, to move wind and solar power you need high-voltage transmission lines. Those are very expensive and they lay down a significant footprint on the landscape.

In short, the problems with those energy sources will keep them from ever being more than mere curiosities if the market is allowed to work properly. But if the government is allowed to pick winners - particularly if THIS government is allowed to do so - it’s a different story. After all, Nancy Pelosi has a huge position in T. Boone Pickens’ wind-energy company - and wind gets government swag by the truckload as a result of the current legislation. This transparent bribe to herself would put her in front of a media firing squad if the Speaker was a Republican; instead you’ll barely hear a word about corruption and greed so flagrant it makes Teapot Dome look like theft of copy paper and paper clips from the supply closet at the DMV.

And when Pelosi and others of her ilk spend their time decrying “Big Oil” after everything they’ve done to pervert our energy economy, it’s enough to question not just their judgement, but even their allegiance to the country or to their fellow Americans.

What it all comes down to is that America’s energy policy couldn’t be much worse. Both parties have had a hand in the awful mess our politicians have created, and by now it’s obvious they lack the moral, intellectual and strategic capacity to craft a worthwhile policy. And as such it’s long past time they just get the hell out of the way and let the people who can actually earn their living in that business do their jobs.

Crossposted at TheHayride.com

…who I do think is wrong where NY-23 is concerned, he does make an argument that is defensible on certain levels.

Gingrich, on Greta Van Susteren’s show tonight, said several things defending his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava in that race.

First, Gingrich does make a point that the local GOP’s choice of Scozzafava over Doug Hoffman and others was a LOCAL choice. And while that choice indicates that local Republican hacks in upstate New York are probably less worthy of Republican hacks inside the Beltway, it is, sadly, a valid argument to say that if you’re sick and tired of top-down leadership of the party from Washington and it’s going to require listening to local folks to fix things, you can’t then turn around and invalidate local choices because you don’t like the outcome.

I don’t like what he’s saying there, but I will at least admit that he has a point.

Gingrich also alleges that Hoffman doesn’t live in the district and has little financial support within it. I can’t speak to the first allegation and I’m not impressed with the second, given that most of Scozzafava’s local support comes from people who are habitual Republican donors and Hoffman couldn’t really be asked to match that institutional advantage.

There are several lessons to be drawn from this. First, Newt is clearly attempting to position himself with the Powers That Be within the GOP for some future role - whether that’s running for president in 2012 or to take over for Michael Steele as the RNC chair when Steele is put to pasture at some future time. Gingrich’s high negatives among leftists and moderates are seen as a major problem for him to achieve some official role on a national stage; he’s obviously trying to ameliorate that problem. Taking a stand on behalf of a “moderate” (which is an extremely forgiving description of Scozzafava) Republican, particularly one who is female and from the Blue-State Northeast, is a juicy gambit for him to embark on as a repositioning effort. It’s also an opportunity for Gingrich to prove his fealty and trustworthiness within the party elite after several years of running what essentially amounts to a parallel political organization - backing Scozzafava is an attempt to “come back into the fold” and thus garner support with a constituency that has never been friendly to him.

In other words, Gingrich had a choice between being a conservative and being a Republican, and he chose the latter. He chose it because he thinks there aren’t enough conservatives to win a majority in the House, Senate or Electoral College, which based on current polling (America is 40 percent conservative, 36 percent moderate and 20 percent “liberal”) and previous electoral history is a dubious stance. And he also may have chosen it because he sees a political advantage for himself. Gingrich is a politician pursuing office, after all, and such people cannot be trusted to stand on principle at all times.

I’ve been a Gingrich fan, though to be that as a conservative is to subject yourself to frequent disappointment. He’s a flawed individual who lacks the charisma a Reagan could use to bend the nation to his vision - and knows it. As such, Gingrich is prone to making compromises on disadvantageous terms with enemies of conservatism - in pursuit of greater good, without doubt, but with lackluster results.

Gingrich isn’t alone in his missteps. He has a tremendous talent for formulating and articulating an agenda, but tactically he’s weak. Most political leaders lack even those skills. But despite the assets he brings to the table, Newt doesn’t have the moxie to fulfill his ambitions and we’re seeing that now. He might be attempting to help unify the Republican Party with his involvement in NY-23, but he’s having the opposite effect - to his personal detriment.

Still, Newt has value. As conservatives, we must use him when he can be useful - and ignore him when he chooses unwisely.

If you did, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that Alan Grayson…

…is remarkably similar to the evil Nazi thug Gunther Frankel played by Waldemar Kobus?

At least we can be certain Kobus was just acting. Grayson? Who knows?

And if you don’t get misty-eyed watching it, then you’re the anti-American douchebag I fantasize about beating to a pulp with a golf umbrella.

Consider the following bits of news:

1. The Democrats in the U.S. Senate are scheming to avoid taking full blame for increasing the federal debt limit to $13 trillion, as the federal government’s runaway spending now has the national debt sitting at $11.95 trillion as of Tuesday and the current debt limit stands at $12.1 trillion. The projected 2009 federal budget deficit is $1.4 trillion.

2. Kenneth Feinberg, the federal “pay czar” in charge of dictating who can make what at the seven companies the government now owns as a result of auto and bank bailouts, now says he’s imposing draconian cuts in executive compensation among the 25 highest-paid employees at Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. The cuts involved could wipe out as much as 90 percent of salaries and as much as 50 percent of total compensation.

3. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is reviewing rules on compensation for executives at the 28 largest banks in the country so as to discourage “excessive risk-taking.”

4. While the government is doing what it can to lop off the top tier of incomes, it doesn’t seem very successful at creating incomes on the bottom tier. Council of Economic Advisors chair Christina Romer is now warning that “severely elevated” unemployment rates will be the norm for some time to come, while at the same time touting the Obama administration’s stimulus package as having produced between 600,000 and 1.5 million jobs. Other estimates say the stimulus has created more like 30,000 jobs. Romer admits that since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, payrolls have decreased by some 7.2 million jobs.

There’s a pattern here, and it certainly isn’t a positive one.

First of all, if as a reader your initial reaction is that it’s a good thing executives at all these bailed-out firms are getting hit since they were the ones who made a bailout necessary, let’s point out that (1) the Fed’s decision affects more than just bailed-out banks, and (2) not every bank which accepted federal TARP money did so through its unfettered free will; many of them were pressured to do so. If those considerations aren’t enough to overcome your class-envy zeal, I’ll say it was a stupid move to bail those companies out in the first place; poorly-run companies destroy wealth and the best thing for them is reorganization through bankruptcy so as to stop the bleeding.

But what is particularly galling is not the question of who is getting gored by the federal government. Wall Street executives aren’t the most sympathetic people around; they represent part of a failed elite in this country which is far more parasitical than productive and I’m all for diminishing as much of their power and influence as possible.

No, it’s who’s doing the goring here.

The Obama administration’s fiscal performance is far and away the worst of any presidency in American history. It has run up a deficit greater than all eight years of the previous administration combined while blaming that administration for the federal government’s poor fiscal situation. It has its minions in the Senate opening the door to ever-higher levels of federal debt when the debt burden per American household already sits at close to $100,000 - and projections are that this debt will nearly double (from $11.95 trillion to over $21 trillion) over the next decade. Projections also have the interest on that debt rising to over $800 billion per year.

In the meantime, this administration decided on a war strategy in Afghanistan back in March based on recommendations given to them by the previous administration. Obama trumpeted that new strategy at a press conference on March 27 of this year, and he changed commanding generals in the Afghan theater in pursuit of that new strategy. But after Gen. Stanley McChrystal outlined the resources he needs to pursue that strategy, the president has spent the last two months “dithering and waffling,” in the words of former Vice President Dick Cheney in a brilliant-but-caustic speech at the Center For Security Policy last night. To date, nearly seven months after announcing a new Afghan strategy Obama has not moved to implement or reject that strategy.

Obama blew $787 billion on a stimulus package which by any objective measure has been an unmitigated waste of money despite the administration’s countless attempts to spin it as something else. And he’s spending his time attempting to ram through a federal seizure of the medical sector that 54 percent of the American people reject while at the same time conducting a campaign of intimidation and defamation against Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - not to mention continuing to push a cap-and-trade bill which will involve, among other things, a $3.6 trillion tax increase on gasoline.

Given this level of performance, I ask - is anyone in the federal government in any position to evaluate anyone else’s performance or decide what executives should be paid? I’m thinking probably not.

What it comes down to, when you stop to consider this, is incompetence. Given that the federal government used our tax dollars - or more accurately put, our children and grandchildren’s tax dollars - to bail out the companies whose executives Feinberg is now seeking to kneecap, shouldn’t it be incumbent upon our government to serve as a proper steward of those companies and do the things necessary to maximize the return on our investment? And wouldn’t it be prudent to insure that the people those firms need to effectively run their operations and return to sound financial health be paid the market rate? After all, when you lowball someone on salary it’s a matter of time before they leave for greener pastures. And companies unable to attract top management talent are highly unlikely to make sound decisions leading to profitability or good ROI on our tax dollars.

Obama and his Democrat lickspittles in Congress certainly aren’t imposing principles of austerity on themselves or others within the federal apparatus; they’re having a difficult time justifying the excesses in the federal budget and the resulting deficits discussed above. It appears those principles are only good for the private firms they’re in the process of nationalizing. I find that telling.

Of course, there is a much larger issue at stake here - namely, the assault on liberty represented by the actions the people in charge of our federal government are currently perpetrating. That anyone in Washington would feel it necessary to go beyond the confiscatory level of progressive taxation at the local, state and federal level to invade the pockets of high-demand employees at bailed-out or otherwise-regulated firms is not just evidence of impracticality; it’s tyranny. No one in government has the right, nor should they have the power, to dictate to a private citizen how much he can be paid through exercising his right to contract with another party. Property rights and the freedom to engage in economic activity are absolutely essential to American life and they are bedrock principles as set down in the Declaration of Independence.

This trajectory has to be fought - and hard. If it isn’t stopped, the American economy as a whole will be in the same shape as those bailed-out firms; namely, dead broke, drained of talent, direction and ambition, and in a state of permanent decline compared to hungrier and more aggressive competitors.

Crossposted at TheHayride.com

Now that Rush Limbaugh’s involvement in an ownership group attempting to purchase the St. Louis Rams has been terminated due to bad publicity surrounding “quotes” trumpeted by left-wing propagandists which were subsequently exposed as lies, I wonder - does it not allow us free rein to treat Limbaugh’s tormentors similarly?

For example, I understand Jesse Jackson makes a living as an extortionist.

I understand Al Sharpton is a bald-faced liar, hoaxster and criminal.

I understand CNN’s Rick Sanchez once got drunk and ran over a pedestrian outside of Pro Player Stadium in Miami. That pedestrian ultimately died.

Wait, stop. Jackson, Sharpton and Sanchez actually are guilty of those allegations. It’s NOT the same thing to point those out as to ascribe a defense of slavery to Limbaugh - when despite the detailed documentation of everything the radio host has said on his show since it made its national debut in 1988 there has been ZERO evidence made public that such a quote exists beyond the Left’s poisonous imagination.

What is a more accurate analogy would be to say that Jason Whitlock fellates rhesus monkeys. Or that Mercury Morris keeps Guatemalan boys in his basement for purposes of human sacrifice every new moon. Or that DeMaurice Smith and DeMarco Farr engage in a homosexual affair.

There is no more evidence to suggest the accusations those individuals have made about Limbaugh as a putative racist are true than are the ones I’ve just alluded to. In fact, if Limbaugh was the man they accuse him being it would beg the question why his call screener who has been with him for 20 years is black or why Walter Williams, who guest-hosts Limbaugh’s show for a day or so virtually every time Rush goes on vacation.

It’s probably too much to say that Limbaugh is being persecuted; owning an NFL team isn’t a right and the end effect on the radio host of this affair won’t necessarily be a deletirious one. However, the fact that the Jacksons and Sharptons of the world would have the power to interfere with the private contractual affairs of ANYONE in this country is nothing short of a damn shame, and America is worse off for them having that power. Those are criminals and parasites on society; their only relevance comes from their ability to accuse successful white people of racism so as to extort money or generate publicity for themselves.

Jackson and Sharpton produce nothing. They do nothing at all to elevate their people; in fact, it is in their interest to keep black Americans poor, ignorant and downtrodden - educated and self-sufficient people would NEVER place their interests in the hands of such unworthy bad actors as those two. And Limbaugh’s message - that individual success is within reach of anyone willing to apply himself - is a dangerous one to a Jackson or Sharpton who preaches dependence and despondence for American blacks.

Marginalizing Limbaugh and attempting to turn him into a Klan member and an outcast is crucial for them. Were large swathes of the black population in America ever to listen to him - or others who share his message such as Williams or Larry Elder or Thomas Sowell - Jackson and Sharpton would fade from the scene in ignominious fashion. And their masters atop the Democratic Party are no less threatened by that message; hence their gleeful participation in this week’s feeding frenzy.

There is a strong whiff of fascism in the Limbaugh/Rams controversy. Certainly his stance as a provocateur made him something of a risky addition to the NFL owners’ club, but this is the first time in memory when a prospective owner’s political opinions - not to mention libelous and slanderous statements made by his enemies - have disqualified him from engaging in commerce in this country. That this has been done in an effort to punish an enemy of a ruling elite signifies a new low in America; regardless of your opinion of Limbaugh, you must recognize that when “watch what you say if you know what’s good for you” becomes good advice we are not the country we aspire to be.

Crossposted at www.thehayride.com

The announcement this morning that His Holiness The One, Galactic President Barack Hussein Obama - mmm-mmm-mmm, has picked up a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at, er, well, for his efforts, reminds me of an old Cajun joke, which goes like this…

Thibodeaux, on his way to work every morning, drives past the sugar-cane fields of his friend Emile. But on a particular Monday he sees his friend loitering among his cane stalks with no apparent purpose.

This being an unusual sight, Thibodeaux notices the event as somewhat remarkable and then proceeds to go about his business. But on Tuesday, on his morning commute Thibodeaux notices once again that his friend is lingering in the same position - with precisely the same attire. Based on his rather disheveled appearance, it doesn’t appear he has moved since the previous day. Thibodeaux begins to get concerned, but knowing as he does that Emile is something of a strange bird he reluctantly puts the spectacle out of his mind and continues about his day.

When on Wednesday Thibodeaux spots Emile clad in the same attire, looking more disheveled and standing in the same spot, he decides he has had quite enough and pulls his truck over.

“Hey Emile,” he bellows. “What you doin’ out here? All week you been out here in that cane. You crazy?”

“Hell, no,” comes the reply. “Me, I’m winnin’ one of dem Nobel Prizes.”

“Say what?” asks Thibodeaux. “You ain’t doin’ a thing. How you gonna win a Nobel Prize?”

“Simple,” says Emile. “I’m goin’ by de book. It says all I gotta do is be out standin’ in my field. Dey don’t say how long I gotta do it, though.”

No, that joke isn’t exactly appropriate to describe Obama’s honor today. It is, however, somewhat descriptive - for after all, our president hasn’t really done much more to further the cause of world peace than our friend Emile. In the nine months he’s been president he’s largely stood around in the figurative sugar cane.

The Nobel committee, which apparently voted Obama as their winner sometime around Feb. 1, when he had been president for all of 10 days, claims their prize comes as a result of actual achievements. Even spotting Obama the 8 1/2 months since that vote, the most concrete achievement in bringing peace our president has had was the Beer Summit between Skip Gates and James Crowley after creating a national controversy with stupid statements in the first place.

So far it’s pretty clear Obama has been “out standing” rather than outstanding in his field. But given his obvious agenda to relinquish American prestige and power in favor of joining into some multipolar utopia, it’s little surprise that the “international community” sees him as a star. As such, Obama is being rewarded for his attitude and stance as a citizen of the world rather than the leader of a great nation - and that means actual accomplishments are of no real import.

Two pieces on these events today are of particular merit. The first, by Benjamin Kerstein at The New Ledger, points out the ridiculous nature of Obama earning the Nobel and the almost Monty Python-esque character of the situation:

“He’s not the messiah! He’s a very naughty boy! Now piss off!”

The other is a somewhat unrelated piece by Charles Krauthammer in the Weekly Standard which addresses the issue of national decline. Krauthammer’s thesis is that America’s decline from global hegemon to just-another-one-of-the-guys at the United Nations is a choice we’re making, and it’s a choice we should be very deliberative about. He posits that the Left in America, as personified and led by Obama, wants badly to reduce our role in world affairs for two reasons - first, America lacks the moral capacity to be a superpower because of whatever perceived faults (see the Obamapology Tour of 2008-09 for specifics), and second, because in reducing this country’s role the proceeds might be invested in a welfare state which will help keep Democrats in power and help prevent further moral degradation and aggression on the world stage.

Per Krauthammer, America would thus be a larger version of the Western European social democracies, with their pitifully weak militaries and cradle-to-grave nanny states. The Europeans are incapable of aggressive military action - they can’t project power beyond their own borders for the most part, not to mention the fact their populations are militantly pacifist - and thus they are morally superior to the United States. As he notes, however, this flaccid existence is made possible at present by the protection and fidelity of the American armed forces; should America join Europe in comfortable decline, who will protect us?

That question, at the end of the day, is the real one Obama’s prize brings forward. The Nobel committee applauds a president whose vision of America is humble and doesn’t lead - it is by no means given, however, that such a vision promotes peace or security for either America or the planet, nor is it clearly shown that abandoning 70 years of U.S. strategic policy satifies our national interest.

One of the more prevalent criticisms of Obama getting the Nobel prize is that it’s far too soon. You would think the Nobel committee might have learned that lesson after Yassir Arafat pocketed his prize and then commenced a war against Israel, but obviously that wasn’t the case. The sense here is that our president’s policies with respect to North Korea, Iran, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe will result in less peace rather than more, and his pursuit of an emasculated, beta-male America will embolden international tyrants and adventurers rather than placate them. And then, in that much more dangerous world, we’ll see whether Obama is worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Cross-posted at www.thehayride.com

Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute and National Review, who I have always thought was a solid, quality conservative writer and whose new book The Age Of Reagan is said to be one of the definitive works on that glorious American era, has put out a piece in the Washington Post which is worthy of comment.

Sadly, it’s not worthy of agreement; at least not in large measure.

The title of Hayward’s column asks whether conservatism is brain-dead, which might have resulted from the gleeful opportunism of the Post’s editorial staff and not the writer. Nevertheless, Hayward’s thesis is that since the majority of the heat generated from the Right is coming from talk radio and other entertainment-media figures, there is an “imbalance” within the movement because conservative academics aren’t driving it on a more intellectual level.

Hayward doesn’t exactly disparage the pop-culture conservatives, but while he mentions that in the past the intellectual and populist wings of the Right have peacefully coexisted, and happily so, he laments that there are no apparent titans of the movement in the ivory towers like William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol or Milton Friedman. “We’ve traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites,” he cries.

Hayward goes further:

The best-selling conservative books these days tend to be red-meat titles such as Michelle Malkin’s “Culture of Corruption,” Glenn Beck’s new “Arguing with Idiots” and all of Ann Coulter’s well-calculated provocations that the left falls for like Pavlov’s dogs. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these books. Politics is not conducted by Socratic seminar, and Henry Adams’s dictum that politics is the systematic organization of hatreds should remind us that partisan passions are an essential and necessary function of democratic life. The right has always produced, and always will produce, potboilers.

Conspicuously missing, however, are the intellectual works. The bestseller list used to be crowded with the likes of Friedman’s “Free to Choose,” George Gilder’s “Wealth and Poverty,” Paul Johnson’s “Modern Times,” Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind,” Charles Murray’s “Losing Ground” and “The Bell Curve,” and Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man.” There are still conservative intellectuals attempting to produce important work, but some publishers have been cutting back on serious conservative titles because they don’t sell. (I have my own entry in the list: a two-volume political history titled “The Age of Reagan.” But I never expected the books to sell well; at 750 pages each, you can hurt yourself picking them up.)

About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism,” which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work. Had Goldberg called the book “Aspects of Illiberal Policymaking: 1914 to the Present,” it might have been received differently by its critics. And sold about 200 copies.

Certainly I can agree with Hayward on Liberal Fascism; it is without question one of the most important works of conservative literature in the past 30 years. But he neglects to give due credit to Mark Levin, whose Liberty And Tyranny is a brilliant work owed a tremendous debt by conservatives of all stripes. In a post in National Review Online’s The Corner blog today, Hayward mentions, and attempts to explain, the omission:

The omission of Levin from my piece is conspicuous, but was a combination of deliberation and space limitations. Mark is a special case, and I could have chosen him instead of Glenn Beck for my approving case study at the end, but I decided to go with Beck because he’s in everyone’s cross-hairs at the moment, and also because I don’t think Mark needs to learn anything from me. I think Liberty and Tyranny is an excellent book, exactly the kind of book we need that explains in a serious way how liberalism has unraveled the Constitution thread-by-thread.

But, would Liberty and Tyranny have sold over 1 million copies if the author were merely Mark Levin of the Landmark Legal Foundation rather than Mark Levin the national talk radio host? Doubtful I think.

Again, many of Hayward’s points are fair ones to make. And he doesn’t seem to be disparaging the talk radio/Fox News conservative circuit in the main, though some barbs are thrown (particularly at Sean Hannity, who is on occasion less intellectual in his orientation than he should be given his influence).

What is a little disturbing, however, is why it’s necessary to take apart the conservative movement and set its proponents against each other in this way. As Hayward himself says, the movement needs a broad spectrum of voices in order to reach a maximum number of people, and one of the most memorable of Ronald Reagan’s pronouncements about fellow travelers was his 11th Commandment - namely, thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republicans. This piece certainly seems to have at least scraped the edge of the 11th Commandment, if not actually having broken its skin.

The fact is, while Hayward’s stomping grounds at National Review still provide a sensational outlet for conservative intellectuals to generate strong work, there is hardly the difference between NRO and, say, the message Limbaugh puts out on a daily basis Hayward seems to be trumpeting. In fact, if you listen to Rush on a daily basis you’ll find that he draws a great deal of material from NRO, and The American Spectator, and Levin, and from lots of other conservative intellectual sources to include think tanks like the Heritate Foundation and the Cato Institute. Limbaugh certainly doesn’t ignore the intellectual side of the conservative movement; his message is remarkably similar to that of William F. Buckley even if he differs with Buckley as to style.

Similarly, while a listener to Levin’s show might find it to be often abrasive and quirky in a way one wouldn’t expect from someone of his accomplishments both professional and academic outside of the talk-radio milieu, the content of his show and certainly that of his books rivals that of the think tanks.

Beck is likely the source of Hayward’s piece more than anyone else; he echoes my criticism of the rising-star host’s sometimes off-putting style, but notes that there is real power in his message and a mother lode of intellectual ground to be gained in Beck’s investigations of what Hayward calls “liberalism’s patrimony,” which as Goldberg’s excellent book describes at length is an extraordinarily dubious one. Beck, informed by Liberal Fascism and other great conservative intellectual works like Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man and R.J. Pestritto’s Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, has done the necessary work of re-examining where modern left-wing thought comes from and is exposing the fact that very little of what the Obamas, Pelosis and Reids of the world are attempting to foist on our country differs greatly from other, ultimately horrifying, statist movements in the past piled upon their populations. Hayward sees the great value in this line of inquiry.

But here comes this haymaker:

Yet it was not enough just to expose liberalism’s weakness; it was also necessary to offer robust alternatives for both foreign and domestic policy, ideas that came to fruition in the Reagan years. Today, it is not clear that conservative thinkers have compelling alternatives to Obama’s economic or foreign policy. At best, the right is badly divided over how to fix the economy and handle Iran and Afghanistan. So for the time being, the populists alone have the spotlight.

Hayward is off the rails badly with that statement. The idea that there isn’t firepower in conservative writings on the policy issues which confront America is ludicrous, frankly. Hayward’s own NRO has a half-dozen excellent policy suggestions on a bad day, and that’s true of most other major conservative sites. The criticism he attempts to offer is nothing more than a defeatism gained from too much exposure to the Left.

And as Hayward is immersed in the Beltway community of ideas, it’s not a surprise he sees things as they are. That community is dominated by the Left and has been for the better part of a century, if not longer. It’s no secret that conservatives have lost the battle in America’s intellectual institutions - legacy media, culture, academia - and so those of the Right who remain are faced with a choice between intellectual dhimmitude like that accepted by the likes of Peggy Noonan or David Brooks, or being targeted as a dunce by those who dominate that scene.

But the intellectual community in Washington, New York, Hollywood or on campus is a pitifully small, if not insignificant, slice of American political or ideological life. He, and others styling themselves as the conservative elite, need to understand this. They also need to understand that the intellectual life of the movement is no longer confined to elite academia or the pages of well-respected tony publications; with the blogosphere and YouTube and the advent of entrepreneurial journalists like Michelle Malkin or Andrew Breitbart we are seeing that good work may come from virtually anywhere; it is no longer necessary that conservative commentators carry sheepskins from Yale. Limbaugh and Beck are as educated as any Ivy League professor of political science, but their base of knowledge comes from independent study of issues and philosophies and not the stilted leftist indoctrination of so many of our elite universities.

Hayward also seems to decry the loss of those giants like Friedman, Buckley and Kristol, all of which have come recently and all of whom are greatly missed. He is without a doubt correct in noting the contributions of those titans and lamenting their absence in so troubling a time. But the great conservative minds of the 20th Century stood on the shoulders of titans who came before; men like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Montesquieu and the American founding fathers - and those great minds in turn drew deeply from sources which had come from long before. The conservative intellectual patrimony dates to the ancient Greeks and Romans and the very beginnings of Western civilization. It also comes from millenia of experience in the human condition and a recognition that giving fallible human beings power over their fellow man and asking those humans to successfully manage vast and complex systems will in turn lead to abuse and failure on a grand scale.

The truths conservatives have to offer do not require grandiose new explanations or brilliant bells and whistles. Conservatism is timeless and practical; in that sense it will never compete with the scientific utopianism of the statist left in an academic setting. Conservatism is basic and it is common sense. The intellectual elites thrive on the constant seeking of a new avant-garde; how is that to be found in tried-and-true principles like individual freedom, fiscal sanity and military strength? It’s no challenge to defend those ideas. In an academic setting it’s far more interesting and rewarding to concoct theories to disparage those notions, particularly when the bomb-throwers who seek the ivory tower as a refuge seldom have to put their “innovative” theories to the test in actual governance. The Obama administration has brought a host of the academic left into power, and we are seeing an epic failure which has been tried on repeated occasions in the past; it will be quite some time before the experiment is tried again.

The point is that while it would be a welcome development for conservatism to rise in Hollywood, academia or the media, it isn’t necessary for that to be the case for the movement to regain American governance. But if the light of classical liberal thought as evidenced in the conservative movement is to be kept alive by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Chuck Norris, so be it - it does require, though, that the elite, intellectual side of the conservative movement take a back seat and let those in the movement who have found a way to actually connect with the American people and articulate the movement’s principles with force and verve to control the agenda.

And in fact a “populist” conservatism is in all likelihood a truer conservatism. At base, this is an ideology centered on the liberty of the individual. It is hardly a surprise that the loss of “elite” conservatives like Buckley, Friedman and Kristol is so mourned and that those figures go unreplaced; it is difficult in the extreme to find someone who can combine a commonsense philosophy with a style those in the elites admire. Their world is one where multiculturalism and Gay and Lesbian Studies can be taken seriously; is it really necessary to placate them in order to govern a country?

…who’s behind their funding?

Has anyone ever done the real research to find out who backs these organizations?

Sure, the Hollywood Left and the Soros mob plays a large part. But it’s hard to believe that those people all by themselves can keep such a massive fraud going.

Government funding plays a part as well, no doubt. That has been going on for far too long.

But who else?

Has anyone ever sought to establish a connection between funding for groups like the Sierra Club and the various Climate Action Network people - and foreign sources?

Would it really be a surprise to anyone if such research turned up locations like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia as origination points for climate change money? After all, who but those countries benefit most should America abandon its domestic sources of energy and self-destruct our economic dominance on the world stage?

If Putin, Chavez or Ahmedinejad wanted to build a fifth column with an eye toward forcing more dependence on foreign energy sources and eroding economic performance within the United States, would the global warming movement not be a perfect vehicle?

I’m just asking the question. Shouldn’t someone investigate this?

After all, yesterday the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a global-warming suit against the coal industry on the basis of public nuisance can go forward. It’s now a wide-open playing field for tort lawyers to assault productive industry on the basis of perceived harms which can neither be proven nor linked to the activity of American industry, and the damage which can be done to domestic energy production and basically all other manufacturing in this country is likely to rival that of medical malpractice to the healthcare sector.

Should this foolishness go forward, it will threaten the very viability of American enterprise. So, I ask again, cui bono? Who benefits?